The House of the Coptic Woman - (Hoopoe Fiction) by Ashraf El-Ashmawi

About the Book

"Nader, an idealistic public prosecutor at the outset of his career, leaves Cairo to start a new posting in rural upper Egypt. On his first night, a mysterious woman named Huda shows up at his lodgings. She is on the run from an abusive husband and, harboring a dark secret, seeks a new start in this small village and escape her harrowing past. Nothing is to be easy for Huda or Nader, and the dramatic circumstances of their first meeting signal the disquiet to come. It is not long before tensions between Copts and Muslims, already on a knife-edge, spiral into a spate of unexplained killings and arson attacks. The locals blame the trouble on the supernatural, and Nader is thrown into a quagmire of sectarian conflict and superstition that no amount of formal training could have prepared him for. His investigations are thwarted at every turn, by uncooperative witnesses and an obstructive police force. As Nader and Huda each pursue happiness and justice, their parallel journeys struggle against the forces of ignorance, poverty, hatred, and greed. With its echoes of Tawfiq al-Hakim's Diary of a Country Prosecutor, this is a powerful and personal tale of conflict, crime, and upheaval in rural Egypt."--

Book Synopsis

A Notable African Book of 2023 (Brittle Paper)

Tightly plotted and taboo-breaking, this explosive story takes readers to the roots of religious strife where the smallest of sparks can start a bonfire

Nader, an idealistic public prosecutor at the outset of his career, leaves Cairo to start a new posting in rural upper Egypt. On his first night, a mysterious woman named Hoda shows up at his lodgings. She is on the run from an abusive husband and, harboring a dark secret, seeks a new start in this small village and hopes to escape her harrowing past.

Nothing is to be easy for Hoda or Nader, and the dramatic circumstances of their first meeting signal the disquiet to come. It is not long before tensions between Copts and Muslims, already on a knife-edge, spiral into a spate of unexplained killings and arson attacks. The locals blame the trouble on the supernatural, and Nader is thrown into a quagmire of sectarian conflict and superstition that no amount of formal training could have prepared him for. His investigations are thwarted at every turn, by uncooperative witnesses and an obstructive police force. As Nader and Hoda each pursue happiness and justice, their parallel journeys struggle against the forces of ignorance, poverty, hatred, and greed.

With its echoes of Tawfiq al-Hakim's Diary of a Country Prosecutor, this is a powerful and personal tale of conflict, crime, and upheaval in rural Egypt.

Review Quotes

"The House of the Coptic Woman is intelligent, complex and rich."-Arab News

"A provocative story of religious strife, justice, and tragedy. . . with a tinge of macabre humor. . . unnerving, and courageous."--The New Arab

"People's houses mysteriously burn, lands change hands and old grudges are never settled. . . . This can be seen as a disquieting novel. It is primarily a portrait of how hard it can be to be human in the midst of other human beings who don't know how to live and let live."--Daily Kos

"These are credible characters and they really ground the story of upheaval and conflict, giving it heft and poignancy, elegantly told, slowly building on the passion behind the story."--Crime Time FM

"[An] intricate legal drama. Two disparate narrators--a public prosecutor and a brutalized runaway woman--take turns relating the events in Upper Egypt, where religion-driven politics engender antagonism and violence. . . . . El-Ashmawi's fiction proves to be a sobering exposéeacute; of the multilayered abuses of ominous power."--Shelf Awareness

"Captivating yet painful, this story unfolds like a beautiful mosaic around the entrance of an abandoned palace."--Ibrahim Abdel Meguid, author of Clouds Over Alexandria

"This masterpiece will remain one of the best Arabic novels of the past fifty years and it shall live for another fifty years."--Amad

"This excellent book shows incredible courage . . . fast-paced and very realistic. The novel is a cry against injustice."--Shorouk

"Ashraf El-Ashmawi breaks down the three deep-seated taboos in Arab writing: religion, sex, and politics."--Reuters (Arabic edition)

"Ashmawi drills deep into the soul of Egypt. Reminiscent of Alaa Al Aswany's The Yacoubian Building, The House of the Coptic Woman uncovers a complex web of religious conflict, abuse of power, and competition over land in the crammed Nile Valley."--Magdi Abdelhadi

"An allegorical tale of religious strife. . . . Much of the story can be read as a thinly veiled critique of the last years of the Mubarak regime, marked by sectarian violence and official corruption."--Kirkus Reviews

"Full of pain, tears, and blood, as well as the bitterness of broken dreams, this book fires a warning shot, drawing our attention to the absence of justice, law, and freedom."--al-Ahram

"[A] creative testimony to one of the darkest, most bitter chapters in modern history."--al-Masry al-Youm

PRAISE FOR EL-ASHMAWI'S PREVIOUS NOVEL, THE LADY OF ZAMALEK:

"A grand family drama set in a society at once strange and familiar, rife with surprise revelations that keep the reader fully engaged. . . .It deserves to be a bestseller."--Washington Independent Review of Books

"There's something very compelling about opening a book to read about a place you've never visited before, from the eyes of an author who knows it well." --LitReactor

"Set in the confines of one toxic family as its members, over decades, perpetually attempt to outmaneuver one another, the narrative creates a sense of vicious hopelessness. In the family, as, it's implied, the country around them, this cycle swallows all; even acts of extreme insurrection feed back into a negative cycle."--LitHub

"The sweep of Egyptian history and the portrait of class, s

About the Author

Ashraf El-Ashmawi is an Egyptian author, judge, and legal scholar. He is a regular contributor to newspapers and online publications. He has written eleven novels that have been critically received: longlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction; best novel at the Cairo International Book Fair; and winner of best novel at the Bahrain Cultural Forum. His books have been translated into multiple languages and The House of the Coptic Woman is his second novel to be translated into English, following The Lady of Zamalek.

Peter Daniel, a long-term resident of Egypt, has worked as a teacher of Arabic as a foreign language and an Arabic-to-English translator for many years.